Upon the top of this came Mrs. Mortomley's letter. Mr. Dean devoted a whole morning to answering that letter, and then insisted upon reading his effusion aloud to his wife.

"I think I have put that very clearly," he said when he had quite finished; "I hope Mrs. Mortomley will lay what I have expressed to heart."

"If you knew anything of Mrs. Mortomley you would never send her that epistle," retorted Antonia. "She will read it to her friends, she will mimic your tone, your accent, your manner; she will borrow a pair of eyeglasses, and let them drop off her nose in the middle of each sentence; and, in a word, she will make the written wisdom of Mr. Dean of Elm Park as thoroughly ridiculous as I have often heard her make your spoken remarks."

Mr. Dean reddened, but answered with considerable presence of mind that the possession of such a wife had no doubt hastened Mortomley's ruin as much as his fatal inattention to small details.

"Perhaps so," agreed Mrs. Dean, "but still she will help him to bear being ruined with equanimity. Dolly never was dull, and, I declare, when one comes to realize how fearfully dull almost every person is, I feel as if she must, by that one virtue, have condoned all the rest of her sins."

Which was really a very hard phrase for Mr. Dean to hear proceed from the lips of the woman he had honoured so far as to make mistress of Elm Park.

But Mrs. Dean was mistaken about Dolly, and Mr. Dean need have felt no fear that ever again she would make him the butt at which to aim the shafts of ridicule. For her the champagne of mirth had ceased to sparkle; for her there was no fun in pompous respectability; for her the glittering sparkle of wit had come to be but as a flare of light to one with a maddening headache.

The cakes and ale of life had been for her, but they were for her no more. Dolly, my Dolly, you were right when you said that last look on the dead face of Homewood killed you,—for the Dolly of an earlier time, so bright, so gracious, so happy, so young-looking, as girl, as wife, as mother, you were from thenceforth never beheld by human being.

CHAPTER VI.

He knew he had about squeezed the orange dry, but he knew a considerable amount of juice had been lost—through "no fault of his own,"—and he consequently set his wits to work to see how that spilled liquor could be replaced.

It was not long before inspiration came to him, and when it did he summoned another meeting of the committee.

At that meeting he gravely proposed that Mortomley should be invited to bid for the remaining book debts, the books, and his discharge. The question was discussed gravely—and as gravely agreed to—though three, at all events, of the committee intended Mortomley never should have his discharge; and accordingly the same evening Mr. Swanland, who really could not dictate to a shorthand-writer, did something which passed muster for dictation, so that eventually Mortomley received a letter asking him to make an offer for the purchase of all the good things duly mentioned.

Now considering that Mortomley had been stripped as clean of all worldly belongings as the Biblical traveller who fell among thieves; considering a man in process of liquidation is in the same state as regards the inability to make personal contracts as a bankrupt; considering Dolly had not a halfpenny left of her fortune, and that friends possessed of great wealth are not in the habit of rushing forward at such times as these with frantic entreaties for their purses to be made use of,—there was a humour about this letter which might have excited the risible muscles of a looker-on.

But there was no looker-on—there were only the players; there were only Dolly and Mr. Swanland in fact, and arrayed in her grey silk skirt, in her black velvet puffings, in her great plaits of hair, in her atom of a bonnet, in light gloves, in the smallest of jackets, and the largest of what then did service for pouffs, Dolly went to have her quarrel out with the trustee.

In which laudable design she was frustrated. Mr. Swanland chanced to be at home laid up with bronchitis, so Dolly saw instead Mr. Asherill, and expressed to him her opinion about the demerits of the firm.

She was not at all reticent in what she said, and Mr. Asherill, spite of his hypocritical manners and suave address, got the worst of it.

He tried quoting Scripture, but Dolly outdid him there. He tried platitudes, but Dolly ridiculed both them and him. He tried conciliation, and she defied him.

"That is a dreadful woman," thought Mr. Asherill, when she finally sailed out of the office, leaving a general impression of silk, velvet, flowers, lace, feathers, and eau-de-cologne behind her. "I'll never see her again."

Poor Dolly, she must have been less or more than woman had she failed to array herself in her most gorgeous apparel when she went forth to do battle with her enemies.

There had been a latent hope in Mr. Swanland's mind that the Mortomleys either were possessed of money or knew of those who would advance it, and he felt, therefore, proportionably disappointed when Mr. Asherill assured him it was all "no good."

"She has her clothes and he has his brains if it ever please the Almighty to restore him his full faculties," summed up Mr. Asherill, "but they have nothing else; on that point you may give yourself no further trouble. Have you heard about Kleinwort?"

"Kleinwort, no! What about him?"

"He has gone."

"Gone! Where?"

"Ah! now you puzzle me. He has left England, at all events."

"And Forde?"

"I suppose we shall know more about Forde three months hence."

Was it true? Aye, indeed, it was. The little foreigner who loved his so dear Forde, the clever adventurer, sworn to see that devoted friend safe at all events,—the gross humbug, who had for years and years been cheating, not more honest, perhaps, but slower English folks, as only foreigners can, had performed as neat a dance upon horseshoes as that other celebrated foreigner who posted to Dover whilst an audience that had paid fabulous prices in expectation of seeing the performance sat in a London theatre waiting his advent.

Mr. Kleinwort was gone.

In spite of that half-yearly meeting already mentioned, where every person connected with St. Vedast Wharf made believe to be so pleased with everything, Mr. Forde found, as the weeks and months went by, that matters were becoming very difficult for him to manage—horribly difficult in fact.

His directors grew more captious and more interfering. They wanted to know a vast deal too much of the actual working of the concern. Instead of spreading out their arms any further, they were inclined to narrow the limits of their operations. They thought it was high time to put several transactions of the Company upon a more business footing, and words were dropped occasionally about their intention for the future, of placing their trade upon some more solid basis, which words filled Mr. Forde with misgiving.

Amongst other persons with whom the directors desired to curtail their dealings, was Mr. Kleinwort, and about the same period Mr. Agnew casually observed that he thought the various mining speculations in which the Company were so largely engaged, might, with advantage, be gradually and with caution closed.

He remarked that he thought such outside transactions were calculated to divert attention from their more legitimate operations, and said he considered unless the capital of the Company could be largely increased, it would be more prudent, in the then state of the money-market and general want of confidence in the public in limited companies, to confine themselves to a different, if apparently less remunerative, class of business. Of these words of wisdom Mr. Forde spoke scoffingly to Mr. Kleinwort, but they made him uneasy nevertheless; and he proposed to Kleinwort that he and Werner and the German should take Mortomley's works, the lease of which—it was after the sale of plant at Homewood—could be had for a nominal price, so that they might have something to fall back on, in case the directors at St. Vedast Wharf should at any time take it into their heads to close transactions with Mr. Kleinwort, and, as a natural consequence, to dismiss Mr. Forde.

"They are ungrateful enough, for anything," finished the manager, and to this Kleinwort agreed.

"They have hearts as the nether millstone," he said, "and, what is worse, their brains are all soft, addled; but still we will not take the colour-works yet. I have one plan, but the pear is not ripe quite. When it is, you will know, and then you shall exclaim—'Oh! what a clever little fellow is that Kleinwort of mine.'"

Whatever opinions Mr. Forde might entertain about Mr. Kleinwort's cleverness, his directors were becoming somewhat doubtful concerning his solvency.

"He is expecting a bill from a correspondent of his in Germany for a large amount in a few days, and he has promised to let me have it," explained Mr. Forde, and then, after his tormentors left him free, he sent round to Mr. Kleinwort, saying, "You must let me have that foreign bill without delay," to which Kleinwort turning down a piece of the paper, wrote "Tomorrow," and putting the manager's note in a fresh envelope returned it to him.

In fault of any better security then obtainable, this bill would next day have been placed to Mr. Kleinwort's credit on the books of the firm, had Mr. Agnew not chanced to take it in his hand. After looking at it for a moment, his eye fell on the date of the stamp, and he at once wrote a few words on a scrap of paper and pushed the memorandum and the acceptance over to the chairman.

"Had not we better request Mr. Kleinwort to attend and explain," he asked.

To which the chairman agreeing, Mr. Forde, who had left the board-room for a moment, and now reappeared, was asked to send to Mr. Kleinwort and say the directors would be glad if he could come round for a few minutes.

"There is something wrong about that acceptance," wrote the manager in pencil. "For God's sake think what it can be, and show yourself at once."

Round came the German to show himself. He entered the board-room wiping his forehead, and after smiling and bowing, said,

"You did wish to see me, gentlemen," and he stole a quick look at the faces turned to his. "Yes, about this bill," suggested Mr. Agnew. "May I inquire on what date you sent it to Germany?"

"I never sent that bill to Germany at all," answered Kleinwort. "I did send one, his fellow, ten days' back, but he have not returned; he will not now. My good friend and correspondent turned up last night at mine house from Denmark, where he had business, and he gave me his signature not ten minutes before it was despatched to this your place."

Hearing which the chairman nodded to Mr. Agnew, and said, "That explains the matter," adding, "thank you, Mr. Kleinwort; we are very sorry to have given you so much trouble."

"No, no, no, not trouble, by no means," declared the German vehemently, and he passed out of the board-room and left the wharf as he had entered it, wiping the perspiration off his forehead.

"Pouf!" he exclaimed, as he re-entered his office, and after pulling off his coat poured out half-a-tumbler of neat brandy, and swallowed it at a draught. "There has been too much of this, Kleinwort, my dear fellow, a few straws more would break even thy camel's back."

During the remainder of that day Mr. Kleinwort was too busy to spare more than a minute even to Mr. Forde, when that gentleman called to see him. The next morning he was too ill to come to business, and Mr. Forde, who felt anxious naturally concerning the health of a man, bound to stand by him through all chances and changes, went up to his house to ascertain what was the matter.

"I must get away for a week," declared the invalid, who looked ill enough to have warranted his saying he must get away for three months. "It has all been too much for me. A few days' quiet, and the sea, and the shells, and the bright ships sailing by, and I come back better than well. I go on Monday to Hastings, and you must so manage as to come to spend Saturday and Sunday in that peace so profound. Promise that it be we see you."

In perfect good faith Mr. Forde did promise that Kleinwort should be gratified thus far, but it was not in his nature to let a man go away from town and fail to remind him by means of every night's post about the trouble and anxiety he had left behind him. To these communications the manager received no reply whatever until the fourth day, when having despatched a more pressing and irritable note than usual there arrived this telegram.

"Monday will not be long. All suspense for you then over. Till then torment not me with business. We expect you for Saturday."

But it so happened that when Saturday came Mr. Forde found himself unable to leave London, and was compelled to telegraph apologies and regrets to his friend.

He waited at the wharf for an hour after the clerks left, expecting a reply to this communication, but at the end of that time wended his way home, thinking that most probably Mr. Kleinwort would address his answer there. Night closed, however, and no telegram arrived.

"He was out, no doubt," considered Mr. Forde, "and, as he is to be in London so soon, did not think it worth while to send a message till his return;" and with these comforting reflections, and the still more comforting fact of Monday, which was to end all suspense, being close at hand, Mr. Forde went to bed and slept soundly.

Monday came, and Mr. Forde was at Mr. Kleinwort's office so early that the head clerk was just turning the key in the lock as he reached the landing.

"Mr. Kleinwort come yet?" asked Mr. Forde.

"I have not seen him, sir. I should scarcely think he could be here yet."

"Any letter from him?" asked the manager, entering the office, and taking the letters out of the clerk's unresisting hands he looked at each superscription curiously.

"I will look round again shortly," he remarked, after he had examined the correspondence once more, and felt in the letter-box to make sure no missive had been overlooked.

"Very well, sir," said Mr. Kleinwort's clerk.

The day wore on, and Mr. Forde looked "round again" often, but still with the same result. He telegraphed to Hastings, but elicited no reply. By the evening's post he wrote requesting that a telegram might be sent to the wharf immediately on receipt of his letter to say by which train Mr. Kleinwort might be expected in town.

He received no telegram; nothing had been heard from Mr. Kleinwort at that gentleman's office; the head clerk feared he could not be so well; and Mr. Forde started off by the next train to Hastings.

Arrived there, he ascertained Mr. and Mrs. Kleinwort had left for London on the previous Friday evening.

By the time Mr. Forde again reached the City all business was over for the day, and the offices closed for the night, therefore the unhappy manager, dreading he knew not what, fearing some evil to which he felt afraid to give a shape or a name, repaired to Mr. Kleinwort's private residence.

He looked up at the house, and as he did so his heart sank within him; not a light was to be seen in any one of the windows, the lower shutters were closed, there was straw littering about the garden. His worst enemy might have pitied him as he stood there hoping he was dreaming, hoping he should wake to find that he had been struggling with some horrible nightmare.

When he could gather strength to do it, he began knocking at the door—knocking till he woke the deserted house with echoes that simulated the sound of hurrying feet—knocking till the neighbours opened their doors, and put their heads out of the windows to ascertain what was the matter.

"There is no one in that house, sir," shouted an irascible gentleman from the next balcony.

"There is no use in your trying to knock the door down. The house is empty, sir. The family left a week ago, and the last of the furniture was removed on Saturday."

"Where have they gone?" asked Mr. Forde in a weak husky voice, which sounded to his own ears like that of some different person.

"To South America. Mr. Kleinwort has got an appointment there under his own government."

That was enough. The manager knew for certain Kleinwort had thrown him over, that he had eight days' start of any one who might try to follow.

How it had been managed; how the Hastings juggle was performed; who had helped him to hoodwink those who might be interested concerning his whereabouts, he felt too sick and dizzy even to imagine.

There was only a single fact he was able to realise; namely, that between him and ruin there stood now but one man, and that man Henry Werner.

CHAPTER VII.

It was a summer in which everything was as dull as can well be imagined. Trade was dreadful; each man seemed losing money, and no man confessed to a balance of five pounds at his bankers'. If City people were to be believed, a series of unprecedented misfortunes compelled them, one and all, to ask for outstanding accounts and to request the return of such small amounts of money as in moments of mental aberration they had been induced to lend to their impecunious friends, whilst it happened most unfortunately that a series of disappointments and misfortunes equally unprecedented prevented the payment of accounts and the return of loans.

Making, however, due allowance for excuses and exaggeration, things were very bad indeed. That badness affected all trades—touched all ranks. People were not rich enough to be ill, they could not afford to die, and so even the doctors and the undertakers found things hard, and believed fees and feathers had gone out of fashion.

"Persons in course of liquidation were to be envied," so Mr. Swanland with a faint attempt at humour assured his visitors, while Mr. Asherill declared that really he wished he could go into the 'Gazette' and so get a holiday.

If you were on sufficiently intimate terms to inquire concerning the fruitful vine and the olive branches belonging to any City man, you were certain to hear the vine and the olives had been transplanted temporarily to some easily accessible resting-place, to which the husband and father declared to you upon his word of honour he had not the means of proceeding on that especial Saturday afternoon when you spoke to him in Finch Lane.

Nevertheless, had your way been his, you would have met him an hour after, taking his ticket for some well-known terminus.

Even Mr. Dean could not manage to leave town, and Mrs. Dean was, therefore, at Scarborough with some Essex friends who had invited her to join their party.

Mrs. Werner was at Dassell with her children, The old lord was dead, and that Charley, who had once wished to marry his cousin, proposed taking up his residence at the family seat. If this resolution were carried out, Mrs. Trebasson intended to leave the hall, notwithstanding her nephew's cordially expressed hope that she would still consider it her home.

Naturally, therefore, Mrs. Werner availed herself of the opportunity, still left of paying a long visit to the old place, and Mr. Werner had begged her not to hurry back, as "he could do very well without her"—which utterance he did not intend to be ungracious, neither did his wife so understand it.

As for Mortomley and his wife, they were far away from London.

In one of the most remote parts of Hertfordshire where woods cover the lonely country for miles, where the silvery Lea flows through green fields on its way to the sea, never dreaming of the horror and filth it will have to encounter ere mingling with the Thames—where the dells are in the sweet spring time carpeted with violets, blue and white, that load the air with perfume—where rabbits scud away through copses starred with primroses—where jays plume their brilliant feathers in the golden sunshine—where squirrels look with bright curious eyes at the solitary passer-by—where pheasants scarcely move out of the way of a stranger's footsteps—where, save for the singing of birds, and the humming of insects, and the bleating of sheep, there is a silence that can be felt—Dolly had found a home.

As seen from the road as picturesque a cottage as painter need have desired to see, but only a poor scrap of a cottage architecturally considered—a labourer's cottage originally, and yet truly as Dolly described it to Mrs. Werner—a very pretty little place.

The ground on which it stood rose suddenly from the road, and the tiny garden in front sloped down to the highway at a sharp angle. On one side was a large orchard, which went with the house, and on the other a great field of growing wheat already turning colour.

Behind the cottage was first its own ample vegetable garden, and then one of the woods I have mentioned, which formed a background for the red-tiled roof and tumbledown chimneys of the Mortomleys' new home.

Dolly had seen the advertisement of a place she thought might suit to let in this locality, and so chanced to penetrate into wilds so far from London.

As usual, the place advertised was in every respect undesirable, and Dolly wore herself out wandering about interminable lanes looking for a vacant cottage and finding none.

All this was in the early spring when the leaves were only putting forth, when Daffodils, Mezerion, and American currant alone decked the modest flower-gardens—when nature, in a word, had not yet decked herself in the beautiful garments of May, or in the glorious apparel of the year's maturer age.

But Dolly knew how that pleasant country place would look when the hawthorn was in bloom, and the roses climbing over the rustic porches, and the corn cut and standing in goodly sheaves under the summer sun.

There was not a mood or tense of country life Dolly did not understand and love, and she felt like a child disappointed of a new toy while wending her way back to the station to think her search had proved all in vain.

She was in this mood as she drew near the cottage I have described.

"I could be quite satisfied even with that," she considered. "I could soon make it look different," and she stood leaning over the gate and picturing the place with grass close under the window, with a few evergreens planted against the palings, with a rustic garden-chair with rustic baskets filled with flowers, on the scrap of lawn she herself had imagined.

As she so stood an old woman came to the door and looked down the walk at the stranger curiously.

"I was admiring your dear little place," said Dolly apologetically. "I think it is so sweet and quiet."

The woman trotted down to the gate on hearing these words of praise, and answered,

"Aye, it is main pretty in the summer, when the flowers are in full blow, and the trees in full leaf. I tell my master we shall often think of it in the strange land we are going to."

Now this sentence perplexed Dolly; owing to the tone in which it was spoken, she could not tell whether the woman meant she and her husband were going to heaven or to foreign parts, so she asked no question.

She only said, "I am sure you will think it no trouble to give me a glass of water. I have been walking a long way, and I am very tired."

"Come in and rest yourself then," the old lady exclaimed heartily, and she conducted Dolly indoors, and dusted a chair for her, and brought her the water ice-cold; and having elicited that Mrs. Mortomley had come all the way from London, that she had walked miles, that she had been to look at Hughes's house, and that neither bite nor sup had passed her lips since breakfast save that glass of cold water, she asked if her visitor would not like a cup of tea. The kettle was on, she said, and she could mash the tea in a few minutes.

Dolly was delighted, she wanted the tea, and she rejoiced in the adventure. What though the bread was home-made bread and as heavy as lead, to quote poor Hood; what though the tea was "mashed" till it was black in the face; what though the sugar was brown and of a treacley consistence,—the guest brought to the repast an appetite which charmed her hostess and amazed herself.

While Dolly sipped her tea, for she understood the teapot had no great force of resistance and could not hold out to great extremity, and the "darling old lady," as Mrs. Mortomley called her for ever afterwards, drank hers out of a saucer, the two women got into a friendly conversation, and the elder told the younger how she and her master were going to America to their only son, who, after being "awful wild," and a "fearful radical," often going well-nigh to break his father's heart, who had set "great store" by his boy, had started off fifteen years previously "for Ameriky unbeknown to living soul."

Arrived there it was the old story of the prodigal repeated, with a difference.

At home he had wasted his substance and neglected his parents. Abroad he repented him of his evil doings, and worked as hard in a strange country as he had idled in England.

He had married well, and was a rich man, and all he desired now was that his father and mother should make their home near him, share his prosperity, and see their grand-children.

"And so, ma'am, we are going as soon as ever we can let the house and sell our bits of furniture. The house we could get rid of fast enough, but no one wants the furniture, and my husband he is loth to let it go for what the brokers offer."

"What do they offer?" asked Dolly.

"For every stick and stool in the house thirty shillings."

"And how much do you think they ought to give?" asked Dolly.

"Why my master he says as how we ought not to take less nor five pound for the furniture, and two pound for the cropped garden and fowl-house, and sty and woodshed, all of which he builded with his own hands; but there's a sight of counting in that money, and people like us have all their beds and chairs and tables, and I wish he'd take the dealer's offer and be done with it, for I am longing to see my boy once more."

Dolly turned her face aside, and looked at the fire.

"What is the rent of this place?" she inquired.

"Four pound eleven a year, ma'am; and though that do sound high, still it is a cheap place at the money, for there's a fine big garden and that orchard you see, and it needn't stand empty an hour if only my master would give in about the furniture."

"How many rooms have you?" Dolly asked.

"We have as good as four upstair; but two of them are open like on the stairs. We use them for storing things, and there is this house; we call the front room 'the house' in these parts, ma'am, and the back place, and another back place where the stairs lead out, and—"

"Might I see it?" Dolly entreated, "I should like to see it so much."

"You'll excuse the place being in a bit of a muddle?" answered the other, as she led the way about her small territory.

"Good Heavens! if this is a muddle, what must apple-pie order be?" thought Mrs. Mortomley, as she looked at the well-scrubbed stairs, at the snow-white boards, at the chest of drawers bees-waxed till she saw her own reflection in them better than in the looking-glass, off which half the quicksilver had peeled; at the patch-work counterpane, which, though probably half a century old, still shone forth resplendent with red and yellow and green, and all the colours of the rainbow.

"I do not care to see the garden," said Dolly when they were once more in the back place; "and I have seen the orchard. I will take the house off your hands, and your furniture, and your crops, at your own price; I have not so much money with me, but I will leave you what I have in my purse, and I will send down again any day you name, in order to pay you the balance still owing and to take possession."

"You, ma'am!" repeated the woman.

"Yes," answered Dolly; "I have a husband who is in bad health, and I must get him away from London for a short time. We cannot afford to take a large house. We can make this answer our purpose, so now give me a receipt for three pounds ten, on account—and—"

"I can't write," was the reply.

"Well, I will leave my address, and your husband can send me one," suggested Dolly.

"He is no more a schollard nor me," said the woman.

Was this the reason Dolly wondered, why at their age they were willing to give up their home and country and go so far away to join the whilom prodigal? Not to be able to send a line, without that line being indited by other fingers, seen by other eyes; not to be able to understand the contents of a letter save by the aid of a third person's reading! It was certainly very pitiful, Dolly considered.

"It is of no consequence," she remarked, after a moment's pause devoted to thinking this aspect of the educational question over. "Here are three pounds ten shillings, and perhaps you can get some of your neighbours to send me a line, saying when you wish to leave. Good-bye, I hope you may have a pleasant voyage, and find your son well and happy at the end of it."

And so Dolly retired mistress of the position; and so all unconsciously she had frustrated the schemes of the poor old father, who, not wishing to cross his wife, and not wanting to leave England, had put what he considered a prohibitory price on his effects, and refused to leave unless that were given for them.

"It is God's will, and I dare not gainsay it," he muttered to himself, when he grasped the full meaning of his wife's breathless revelation. "But it is nought less nor a miracle—what parson tells us a Sundays ain't a bit more wonderful. It is main hard though, for me at my age though, to be taken at my word like this."

From which utterance it will be seen he never thought of going back from his word; indeed, regarding Dolly's visit as he did, it is probable he imagined some judgment might fall upon him if he tried to put any further impediment in the way.

As for Dolly, once she got possession of the place, she sent Esther down with full directions how she was to proceed to make it habitable. Papers were forwarded from London—papers cheap, light, pretty; and with the help of two local workmen, who "contracted" for the job, the whole house was whitewashed, papered, and painted, in ten days. Dogs took the place of the old-fashioned rickety grate, the outer door was taken off its hinges, and a new one, the upper part of which was of glass, put in its place. A modest porch of trellis-work shaded this door, and over it grew roses and honeysuckle, which were duly trained by a superannuated labourer, who, thankful for a week's work, laid down that grass-plot Dolly's heart desired, at a rate of wage which made Mrs. Mortomley feel ashamed as she paid him the price agreed on.

To persons who have been accustomed to yield up their houses to a professional decorator, and allow him to work his will as to cost of material and price of labour, and the amount of improvement to be effected, it may seem that Mrs. Mortomley must, in making her old cottage into a new one, have spent a considerable sum of money.

This was not the case; and yet when Dolly came to go through her accounts, which meant, in her case, counting over the sovereigns still remaining, she felt she had exceeded the original estimate it was her intention to adhere to, and that she must economize very strictly in the future if her noble was not soon to be brought down to ninepence.

Mr. Mortomley had with much difficulty extracted ten pounds from the treasury at Salisbury House, for his attendance at Mr. Swanland's offices, and a wonderful thing had happened to Dolly.

Rupert not merely repaid the money he borrowed, but added twenty pounds to the amount.

"I have had a great piece of good fortune happen to me," he wrote, "and I send you share of it; I leave for the Continent next month, in company with Mr. Althorpe, a young gentleman possessed of plenty of money and no brains to speak of. He pays all my expenses, and gives me a handsome salary in addition. You may expect to see me next Saturday. I long to see your cottage, and will arrange to stay until Tuesday morning."

So Rupert was the first visitor, recalling the old days departed, who crossed the threshold of the new home, and to whom Dolly could expatiate on the improvements she had effected.

"You have done wonders," said Rupert, standing beside her in the little garden which commanded a view of the Lee, winding away through pleasant meadows. "It is really a marvellous little nest to have constructed out of your materials, but," he added suddenly, "Archie does not like it—Archie is breaking his heart here."

"Archie will have to like it," returned Dolly, and there was a tone in her voice Rupert had never heard in it before. "There is no good in a man kicking against the pricks, and pining for things even those who love him best cannot give him. I shall have to tell him, Rupert; I feel that, whether ill or well, it is time he took his share of the burden with me. The sooner he knows, the sooner he will be able to look our position straight in the face. I wish I was not such a coward. I cannot endure the idea of letting him into the secret that everything has gone, that there is not a thing left."

She spoke less passionately than despairingly. In truth, the change from which she had anticipated such good results, proved the last straw which broke her back.

She, understanding their position, had felt thankful to realise that even so humble a home was possible for them until her husband's health should be re-established, and the sight of his ill-concealed despair when he beheld the cottage, proved a shock as great to her as his new home to Mortomley.

For months and months she had been reconciling herself to the inevitable—schooling herself to forget the past and look forward to a future when Archie would take an interest in the modest little factory she and Lang were to prepare, and learn to find happiness in the tiny home she had tried so hard to beautify—but it came upon him suddenly. He had not realised the full change in his circumstances when he left Homewood, or when he struggled back to consciousness from long illness at Upper Clapton; not when he had to attend at Mr. Swanland's offices; not when the Thames Street warehouse was closed, and one of his own clerks started a feeble business there on the strength of his late employer's name and connection; not when the last sale took place at Homewood—no, not once till on the morning after his arrival at Wood Cottage, (so Dolly christened the new home), he rose early, and walking round the house and surveying his small territory, comprehended vaguely there was something still for him to know; that Dolly was keeping some terrible secret.

"He knows all about it as well as you, you may depend," Rupert said in reply to Dolly's last sentence; "nothing you can tell him now will be news to him."

But Dolly shook her head.

Her instinct was clearer than Rupert's reason, and she felt certain if her husband only knew the worst, he would nerve himself to face it more bravely than he could this vague intangible trouble.

"I will tell him," she declared to Rupert, and then like a coward put off doing so till Mortomley himself broke the ice by asking,

"Dolly, how long do you propose remaining in this charming locality?"

"Do you not think it charming?" she inquired. "I think the walks about are lovely, and the air so pure, and the scenery so calm and peaceful—"

"Granted, my love; but it is a place one would soon grow very tired of. I must honestly confess I find time hang very heavily on my hands already."

"Don't say that, don't," she entreated.

"But, Dolly, if it be true why should I not say it?" he inquired.

"Because, my poor dear," and Dolly laid a trembling hand on his shoulder, "I am afraid you will have to stay here and learn to like and find your interests in it."

He took her hand in his, and turned so that he could see her face.

"What is it, dear, you are keeping from me? Is there any difficulty about getting the interest of your money. Mr. Daniells is in London I know, and the matter now ought to be put right. Tell me all about it, dear—why are we in this place, and why do you say we must remain here?"

"Because," Dolly began, and then stopped, hesitating how to frame her sentence.

"Because what?" he asked a little impatiently. "Come, dear, out with it; the trouble will not seem half so great or insurmountable when you share it with me. Because—"

"Because I have no money, Archie, now, except just a very, very little; because that has gone like everything else."

"Do you mean your fortune?" he asked.

"Yes, dear, the whole of it," she answered, determined he should know the worst at last.

"My God!" said Mortomley, and the expression sounded strange, coming from the lips of a man who rarely gave vent to any vehemence of feeling. "What a fool I have been! what a wicked, short-sighted, senseless fool! why don't you speak hardly to me, Dolly—I who have ruined you and Lenore?"

She stooped down and kissed him.

"Archie, I don't care a straw about the money; I did at first, and I was afraid, but I am not afraid now; if only you will be content and brave, and ready to believe small beginnings sometimes make great endings."

But he made no reply. He only rose, and walking to the door flung it open, and stood looking out over the pleasant landscape.

Dolly feigned not to notice him. She went to her work-table and began turning over her tapes and cottons with restless fingers, waiting, waiting for her husband to speak.

Then in a moment there came a tremendous crash, and Mortomley was lying on the matting which covered the floor, like one dead.

CHAPTER VIII.

It was the voice of the olden time—of the never-to-be-forgotten past, when if she made burdens he was strong enough to carry them. In that pleasant country place the cloud which had for so long a time obscured his mental vision, was rent asunder, and the man's faculties that had so long lain dormant, were given back to him once more.

Dolly was right. No one save herself knew how ill Mortomley had been during all that weary time at Homewood, during the long sickness at Clapton, during all the months which followed when superficial observers deemed him well.

Though on that bright summer's morning, with his haggard face turned towards the sunlight, he looked more like a man ready for his coffin than fit to engage once more in the battle of life, there was a future possible for Mortomley again—possible even in those remote wilds where newspapers never came, except by post, and then irregularly; where the rector called upon them once a week at least; where the rector's wife visited Dolly every day during the worst part of her husband's illness; where fruit and flowers came every day from the Great House of the neighbourhood by direction of the owner, who was rarely resident; and where the gentry who were resident thought it not beneath their dignity to leave cards for the poor little woman who was in such sore affliction, and who would have been so lonely without the kindly sympathy of those who had—seeing her at church—considered her style of dress most unsuitable, perfectly unaware that Dolly was wearing out the silks and satins and laces and feathers of a happier time with intentions of the truest economy.

But Dolly was no longer unhappy.

"I am so thankful," she said to the rector's wife that day; "my husband is dreadfully weak still, I know, but he will get better—I feel it—I—"

But there she stopped; she could not tell any one of the old sweet memories those three words, "My poor Dolly," brought back to her mind; she could not explain how when she heard them spoken she understood Archie, her Archie, had been for a long time away, and was now come back and lying feeble it is true, but still on the highway to health in that upstairs chamber which her love had made so pretty for him.

Thus the scales of happiness vibrate, up to-day for one, down to-morrow for another.

It had been the turn of Messrs. Forde and Kleinwort once to stand between Dolly and the sunshine; it was the turn of both now to stand aside while the Mortomleys basked in it; from that very morning when Archie came back to life and reason, Mr. Forde knew for certain Kleinwort's little game was played out and that he had left England, himself not much the better for all his playing at pitch-and-toss with fortune, and every man he had ever been connected with the poorer and the sadder, and the more desperate, for his acquaintance.

Just a week after that day Dolly sat in "the house," as she still continued to call the front room, all alone.

She held work in her hand, but she was not sewing, she had a song in her heart, but she was not singing it audibly. She was very happy, and though she had cause for anxiety best known to herself, hers was not a nature to dwell upon the dark side of a picture so long as there was a bright one to it.

Upstairs Mortomley lay asleep, the soft pure air fanning his temples, and the songs of birds and the perfume of flowers influencing and colouring the matter of his dreams.

Lenore was at the Rectory spending the day. Esther had gone to the nearest town to make some purchases, and Mrs. Mortomley sat all alone.

Along the road, through the gate, up the narrow walk, came a visitor. He never looked to right or left, he never paused or hesitated for a moment, but strode straight to the door and knocked.

The door opened into "the house," which was indeed the only sitting-room the Mortomleys boasted, and Dolly rising, advanced to give him admittance. Through the glass she saw him and he saw her. For a second she hesitated, and then opening the door said, with no tone of welcome in her voice,

"Mr. Werner."

"Yes, Mrs. Mortomley, it is I," he answered. "May I come in?"

"You can come in if you like. As a matter of taste, I should not have thought you would like—"

"As a matter of taste, perhaps not," was the reply. "As a matter of necessity, I must."

After he entered they remained standing. Mrs. Mortomley would not ask him to sit down, and for a moment his glance wandered over the room with its floor paved with white bricks, shining and bright like marble, over the centre of which was spread some India matting.

He took in the whole interior with that rapidity of perception which was natural to him. He noticed the great ferns and bright flowers piled up in the fireplace. He saw wonderful palms and distorted cacti, all presents given to Dolly, the pots hidden away in moss, which gave so oriental a character to the quaint and modest home.

He beheld the poor furniture made graceful and pretty by Dolly's taste and skill, and in the foreground of the picture he saw Mrs. Mortomley, a mere shadow of the Mrs. Mortomley he remembered, it is true, clad in a gorgeous muslin which had seen service at Homewood, her hair done up over frizzetts which seemed trying to reach to the seventh heaven, her frills as ample and her skirts as much puffed as though she was living in a Belgravian mansion.

There was no pathos of poverty about Dolly. To look at her no human being could have conceived she had passed through such an ordeal as that I have endeavoured to describe.

Somehow one does associate sadly-made dresses and hair gathered up in a small knob at the back of the head with adversity, and well as Mr. Werner knew Dolly her appearance astonished him.

"How is your husband?" he inquired at last.

"I cannot at all see why you should inquire," she replied, "but as you have inquired I am happy to say he is better, that I believe he will get well now, well and strong and capable."

"What is he doing now?"

"He is asleep, or was ten minutes ago."

"I did not mean that, I meant in the way of business."

"I decline to answer any questions relating to our private affairs," said Dolly defiantly.

Mr. Werner merely smiled in comment, a sad smile, full of some meaning which Dolly could not fathom.

"May I sit down?" he asked after a moment's pause.

"Certainly, though I should not have imagined you would care to sit down in my husband's house."

"If I had not known Mrs. Mortomley to be an exceptional woman, I should not have entered her husband's house at all."

"Mrs. Mortomley is so exceptional a woman that she desires no compliments from Mr. Werner," was the reply.

He smiled again and said,

"And I in good faith am in no mood to pay compliments to any one—not even to you, whom I want to do me a favour."

"Recalling the past, I cannot help remarking that diffidence does not appear to be one of your strongest characteristics."

"Recalling the past, you will do me this kindness for the sake of my wife."

Dolly did not answer. She wanted to understand what this favour might be before she committed herself.

"I cannot sit," he said, "unless you are seated also, and I am tired mentally and bodily. I assure you when I have told you all I have come to tell, you will not regret having extended to me courtesy as well as attention."

He placed a chair for her, and then took one himself.

"I have come to speak to you about a very serious matter—" he began.

"If it is anything concerning Archie do not go on," she interrupted entreatingly. "I have been so happy this morning, and I cannot bear to hear ill news now—I cannot!" she repeated passionately.

"Strange as it may appear to you," he said calmly, "there are other persons in England than Mr. and Mrs. Mortomley. It is a singular fact, but true nevertheless, that they are only two souls out of a population of thirty millions. I am bringing no bad news to you about your husband or his affairs; my news is bad for Leonora."

"But she is not ill," said Dolly quickly, "for I had a letter from her this morning."

"No; she is quite well, and the children are well, and I am well. There is an exhaustive budget of the state of the family health. But still what I have to say does effect Leonora. You remember your friend, Kleinwort, Mrs. Mortomley?"

"I once saw a detestable little German called Kleinwort," she said.

"And you remember his—so dear—Forde?"

"I remember him also."

"Well, a week ago that so dear Forde found that his devoted friend, under a pretence of ill-health and paying a visit to Hastings, had taken French leave of this country and got ten days' start of any one who might feel inclined to follow. He was not able to secure much booty in his retreat; but I fancy, all told, he has taken seven or eight thousand pounds with him, and he has let the General Chemical Company in for an amount which seems simply fabulous.

"So far Kleinwort, now for myself. A few years ago no man in London need have desired to be in a better position than that I occupied. I was healthy, wealthy, and, as I thought, wise; I was doing a safe trade, I had a good connection; I was as honest as City people have any right to be, and—But why do I talk of this? I am not reciting my own biography.

"Well, the crash of 1866 came. In that crash most people lost a pot of money. Richard Halling did (and your husband's estate has since suffered for it), and I did also. If I had stopped then I could not have paid a shilling in the pound; but no one knew this, my credit was good and my business capacity highly esteemed. So I went on, and tried my best to regain the standing I alone knew I had lost."

A carafe of water stood on a table close to where he sat. He poured out a glass and drank eagerly ere he proceeded.

"Not to weary you with details, in an evil hour my path crossed that of Forde. He wanted to build up the standing of the General Chemical Company; I wanted to ensure the stability of my own.

"Mutually we lied to each other; mutually we deceived each other. I thought him a capable scoundrel; he thought me a grasping millionaire. The day came when I understood thoroughly he had no genius whatever, even for blackguardism, but was simply a man to whom his situation was so important that he would have sacrificed his first-born to retain his post; a man who would have been honest enough had no temptation been presented to him; a man who was not possessed of sufficient moral courage to be either a saint or a sinner, who was always halting between two opinions, and whilst treading the flowery paths leading to perdition, cast regretful glances back to the dusty roads and stony highways traversed by successful virtue, whilst I—"

He paused and then went on.

"Ever since 1866 I have been a mere adventurer, building up my credit upon one rotten foundation after another, believing foolishly it may be and yet sincerely the turn would come some day, and that I should eventually be able to retrieve all—pay all."

"And I still believe," he proceeded after a moment's pause, "that I could have got out safe, had Swanland, for the sake of advertising himself, not advertised your husband's failure. Had I been able to carry out my plans, the General Chemical Company and I had parted company months ago. I reckoned on being able to bribe Forde to help me to do this. He rose to the bait, but he had not power to fulfil his part of the bargain. There was an antagonistic influence at work, and we never traced it to its source until a few days since. Then we found that a new director had been quietly looking into your affair, and as a natural consequence into the affairs of other customers. He discovered how bills had been manipulated and accounts cooked, how one security had been made to do duty for six, and much more to the same effect. It was all clumsy botched work, but either it had really deceived the other directors or they pretended it had, which comes to about the same thing. However, to cut the story short, Kleinwort, who foresaw the turn affairs would take, has gone, and I, who did not foresee, must go also."

"Go where?" Dolly inquired.

"I am uncertain," he answered; "but it is useless my remaining to face the consequences of my own acts."

"But do you mean to say," asked Mrs. Mortomley, "that you intend to go away and never return to England?"

"That is precisely my meaning."

"And what will Leonora say?"

"She will be very much shocked at first, I do not doubt," was the reply; "but eventually, I hope, she will understand I took the best course possible under the circumstances, and that brings me to the favour I want you to do me. I want you to take charge of this parcel, and give it to my wife at the end of six months. Give it to her when she is alone, and do not mention in the meantime to any one that you have seen me, or that a packet from me is in your possession. You understand what I mean?"

"I think so," said Dolly. "There is money in the packet, and—"

"You are shrewder than I thought," he remarked. "There is money in that parcel. You understand now why I ask you to take charge of it? Have you any objection to do so?"

"None whatever," was the quick reply.

"And if questions are asked?"

"I know nothing," she answered.

"You will be silent to Leonora?"

"Yes. I understand what you want, and I will do it. Tell me one thing, however. Some day Leonora will join you?"

"I have faith that it is not impossible," he said, rising as he spoke. "Good-bye, Mrs. Mortomley. God bless you." And without thought he put out his hand.

Then Dolly drew back, flushing crimson. "I do this for your wife, Mr. Werner," she said, "not for you. I cannot forget."

"You can forgive though, I hope," he pleaded. "Mrs. Mortomley, I wish before we part you would say, 'I forgive you, and I hope God will.' It is not a long sentence."

"It is a hard one," she answered; "so hard that I cannot say it."

"For my wife's sake?"

"One cannot forgive for the sake of a third person, however dear."

"Do you remember how you wished, or said you should wish, but for her, that I might be beggared and ruined—beggared more completely, ruined more utterly than you had been? The words have never died out of my memory."

"Did I say so?" Dolly asked, a little shocked, as people are sometimes apt to be, at the sound of their own hot words repeated in cold blood. "I have no doubt," she went on, "that I meant every syllable at the time, but I ought not to have meant it—I am sure I should not wish my worst enemy to pass through all we have been compelled to endure."

"In that case it will be the easier for you to shake hands and say we part friends."

"I cannot do what you ask," she said. "I might forgive had the injury been to me alone; but I cannot forget all you said about my husband, who would not have turned a dog from his door, let alone a man he had known for years. And you never wrote through all the weary months that followed to say you were sorry—you never came or sent to know whether he was living or dead—whether we were starving or had plenty. I can say with all my heart, I hope you will never through your own experience know what we suffered; but I cannot say we part friends. I cannot say I shall ever feel as a friend towards you."

"I think you will, nevertheless, Mrs. Mortomley," he said quietly. "I think if you knew all I have suffered recently, all I was suffering when Leonora told me that night you were in the house, you would not be so hard on me now; but I cannot argue the matter with a woman who has fought her husband's battle so bravely and so persistently. There was a time when I did not like you, when I thought your husband had made a mistake in marrying you, when I regarded my wife's affection for you as an infatuation, and would have stopped the intimacy had it been possible; but I tell you now I find myself utterly in error. Regarding life from my present standpoint, I think Archie Mortomley richer in being your husband than I should consider him had he a fine business or thousands lying idle at his bankers. One can but be happy. Looking back, I believe I may honestly say since I came to man's estate, I have never known a day's true happiness."

"It is to come," she said eagerly; "there are, there must be years of happiness in store for you and Lenny."

"I do not think there ever can for either of us," he answered, and having said this he rose wearily, and would have passed out through the door but that Dolly stopped him. "Do not go away without eating something," she said. "We have not much to offer, but still—"

"I cannot eat salt with a woman who feels herself unable to forgive me," he interrupted. "Good-bye, Mrs. Mortomley. I need not tell you to love my wife all the same, for I know she has been staunch to you through every reverse."

And he was gone. Down the walk Dolly watched his retreating figure; along the dusty high-road she watched the man who was ruined pass slowly away, and then she relented. It seemed to come to her in a moment that, in this as in other things, she was but the steward of the man she had married so long as he was unable to see to his affairs for himself, and she knew he would in an instant have held out the right hand of fellowship to Mr. Werner.

I remember once being much impressed by this expression used concerning a girl recently married.

"She is exactly suited to him; but many men would not care to give their honour into her keeping."

Now this remark had no reference to any divorce scandal possible with the woman. So far as such matters are concerned, any one who had ever known her, might safely have made affidavit she was and would be as utterly without reproach as without fear; but there is another, and if one may say so, without fear of censure, higher sense in which a woman holds her husband's honour in her hand, and that was the sense in which the remark was made.

Just and courteous towards her tradespeople, a gentlewoman in her dealings with servants, not keen and sharp with porters and cab-drivers, considerate to the governess, a stranger within her gates—beyond all things fair in her dealings with her husband's friends—all these points ought not, I think, to be forgotten when one speaks of a man's honour held by a woman.

For truly, she can fail in no single incident I have mentioned without casting a shadow on the judgment of the man who chose her, and it is more than probable Dolly thought this too, for ere Mr. Werner had got a hundred yards from the gate she had sped down the walk, and was flying along the road after him.

"Mr. Werner!" she cried panting.

And then he stopped and retraced his steps towards her.

"I cannot bear it," she said.

And he noticed she had to sit down on the bank by the wayside to recover her breath.

"I cannot endure, when you are so unhappy, to be hard, as you call it. I know Archie would be vexed if he knew I refused to be friends with you. So please, Mr. Werner, do come back and have some fruit and milk—and I do forgive you from my heart."

"There is something else, Dolly," he observed.

Sooner or later it came natural to all men and all women when nature asserted itself, to call Mortomley's poor Dolly by her Christian name.

"What else?" she asked. "Oh! I remember, and I am afraid that is a great deal easier. I do hope God will forgive you too, and us all, and I pray he will make you and my dear Lenny very happy in the future."

He stood, with her hand clasped in his, looking at her intently.

"You will not be sorry for this hereafter," he said at last. "When the evil day comes to you which must come to all, you may be glad to remember the words you have spoken this minute. Thank you very, very much. No," he added, in answer to a request that he would return to Wood Cottage; "I have had pleasant tidings spoken to me, and I will leave with their sound in my ears. Good-bye. When you say your prayers to-night do not forget to remember me."